In the diagnosis and treatment of patients, it is sometimes necessary to take small tissue samples (biopsies) from tissues within the body of a patient. For example, where the patient may have cancer or another disease of the prostate, a physician may take biopsies at a number of locations within the prostate. These biopsy samples may be analyzed in a lab to allow medical professionals to better understand the state of the patient's health and also to allow the medical professionals to plan a treatment, where necessary.
Some treatments for cancer and other tumours involve placing small radioactive seeds or other objects in the body near the locations of the tumours. Brachytherapy is one example of such treatment. In brachytherapy it is desirable to plant the seeds in locations such that, as much as possible, tumours are irradiated while normal tissues surrounding the tumours are spared.
There remains a need for easy-to-use systems and methods for assisting medical personnel to accurately introduce tools to locations within their patients. There is a particular need for such systems that provide real-time information to assist in guidance of a tool or the like that can be understood intuitively.